That's
Cole Porter writing and singing the title song from his hit 1934 musical
"Anything Goes," and that may have been the feeling of much
of the public when he wrote it. If you look at the night club culture
in the country's major cities at that time, openly gay performers
experienced a surge in popularity, so much so that the phenomenon
became known as The Pansy Craze. This is JD Doyle and on this edition
of Queer Music Heritage I'm going to hold your hand and take you through
that world. Don't worry; it will be fine. My approach is that while
there are lots of references on the internet about The Pansy Craze
and mentioning the performers who shared the spotlight, there's no
good place to actually hear them. So this show will be a resource
for that. The term Pansy Craze was taken of course by the common slang
for flamboyant gay men as being pansies. And before I give you any
more history of the Craze itself, I want to get right into the music.
And I'm starting at the very beginning.

Most references
site The Pansy Craze as spanning the late 20s through the early 30s.
Of course there were gray areas before and after. An early figure
often named is Bert Savoy. He was a drag performer and was one of
the first who was overtly homosexual in his act. It's been said he
was pure camp on and off stage. It's also been widely said that Mae
West patterned her own stage persona after Bert Savoy and one of his
catch phrases "You Must Come Over" was morphed by her into
"Come Up And See Me Sometime. " Savoy's partner on stage
was Jay Brennan and we're lucky to have this very rare recording capturing
their act. Like all of the recordings on this show, they naturally
come from 78 rpm records, so please be forgiving on the sound quality.
From 1923 here's Savoy & Brennan with "You Must Come Over"
and the other catch phrase of their act, "You Don't Know the
Half of It."

Savoy
& Brennan - You Must Come Over (1923)
Savoy & Brennan - You Don't Know the Half of It (1923)

That was from
1923 and that same year Bert Savoy was killed when he was struck by
lightning, so that is all we have of his act. This next artist I'm
perhaps taking liberties at including, as he was from the UK but he
did benefit from The Pansy Craze by having very successful engagements
in New York in 1931. He's Douglas Byng and he was famous for his pantomime
drag act, and for his songs full of sexual innuendos and double entendres.
He was prolific at recording and performed into his late eighties.
Here are two by him from 1928, starting with "The Sunday School
Has Done a Lot For Me."

And that last
one is a favorite mine by Douglas Byng, that time obviously not done
in drag. That was "Cabaret Boys," a duet with Lance Lister.

Bailey's
Lucky Seven, with Cliff Edwards - Nobody Lied (1922)

Let's get to
a little history, and while we do that in the background we're going
to hear a mostly instrumental song called "Nobody Lied,"
as done by a band called Bailey's Lucky Seven, with kind of jazz skatting
in the middle by Cliff Edwards. I did not pick the song randomly.
It was co-written by Karyl Norman. He was a prominent drag artist
of this period, known as the Creole Fashion Plate, and he was also
identified as a Pansy Craze performer. His photo, usually both in
and out of drag, can be found on the sheet music for quite a number
of songs of that period. I know of at least 15 for him. This was not
uncommon for drag performers, but Karyl Norman, besides singing these
songs, also wrote some of them. So while there were no recordings
made by him, one of his songs was recorded by the band you're hearing.

Okay, here are
the questions you should want to know. What set the stage for The
Pansy Craze to even happen, and what caused it to end. Now, we're
looking at social history from 70 to 80 years ago, and I'm using as
my guide George Chauncey's book "Gay New York." To get the
nuances you'll want to read the book, and for this broadcast I can
of course just cover the main points. A lot of the story can be attributed
to Prohibition, which was from 1920 to 1933. For the people who did
not want to give up alcohol and nightlife, Prohibition created an
underground subculture. And it was a culture that wanted to be entertained
and was ready for the next novel acts. At least in New York City the
Pansy Craze seemed to follow by a few years the drag balls that were
popular in Harlem in the 20s. As tolerance for homosexuality was fostered
in such an atmosphere, more and more of the gay night life gravitated
to Time Square. And as Time Square was seen as the Crossroads of the
World, club goers from all over experienced and help spread the taste
for these acts. Chalk it up to the curiosity of tourists. And this
new acceptance also fostered the building of a gay community itself
and the mixing of gay people of all economic groups, and even gay
and lesbian owned bars.

If you can sense
dark clouds forming, you're right. A backlash had been brewing. To
the extent that Prohibition was intended to legislate morality, it
was at least in New York City instead encouraging the acceptance of
diverse social elements, gays and lesbians included. It's time to
mention Mae West again, as she could be said to have broken that camel's
back. In 1927, five years before her first movie, she was already
a force on Broadway, after staging a number of successful revues.
She had a talent for attracting attention. The year before she had
written, produced and directed a show called "Sex," which
did good box office but city officials raided the theatre and prosecuted
her on morals charges. Her next show suffered even worse fate. It
was called "The Drag" and dealt with homosexuality. It did
not make it past out of town tryouts, because a state law was quickly
amended to ban any play from, quote, "depicting or dealing with
the subject of sex degeneracy or sex perversion."

Okay, time for
a music break, and as I've been talking about Mae West I picked a
song very obviously done in her style, but by a man.

Cliff
Edwards - Come Up and See Me Sometime (1933)

If that voice
sounds familiar to you, it's because Cliff Edwards was the voice of
Jiminy Cricket in Disney's "Pinocchio," and made famous
the song "When You Wish Upon a Star." I need to say I have
no reason to believe he was gay, but for this show that song was a
natural.

We left off
with homosexuality banned from the Broadway stage, but that did not
ban it from the nightclubs. This brings us to Jean Malin, who many
sources give credit for leading The Pansy Craze. Malin had been successful
doing drag since his teens, winning prizes and attention. In 1930
he was hired to star at a rather swanky uptown venue, the Club Abbey.
He was only 22. What was novel is that he did not bring a drag act
to the club, but instead performed in elegant men's clothing, and
brought with him the camp wit of the gay subculture. If he was heckled
by men at the club he knew how to cut them to shreds with his wit,
to the delight of the crowd. And being a large man, he was also reportedly
willing and more than able to hold his own in a fight. He was earning
admiration for essentially being a professional pansy. For a time
he became the top earner on Broadway.

Success brings
imitators of course and soon other clubs had their pansy acts and
at the end of 1930 there was even the opening of a nightclub calling
itself the Pansy Club, hosted by Karyl Norman. Other well-known female
impersonators at this time and active at such venues were Francis
Renault and Niles Marsh. Before I talk about other performers on this
new scene I want to follow Jean Malin a bit further. In January of
1931 there was a gangland shooting at the Club Abbey. That spurred
the police to mount a campaign against the pansy clubs and those featuring
female impersonation, and within a few months all were either shut
down or featured other kinds of acts. Malin moved his act to Boston
and then in the Fall of 1932 to Hollywood, with even more success.
There he appeared in at least two films and hosted at the Club New
Yorker, where Hollywood celebrities hobnobbed. There was also a recording
of two songs done by Malin in 1931, his only appearance on record.
The first song you'll hear uses one of his famous quips, "I'd
Rather Be Spanish Than Mannish." Being Spanish was apparently
an in-joke for being gay in those days.

Jean Malin and
"I'd Rather Be Spanish Than Mannish," and "That's What's
The Matter With Me." I mentioned he had small parts in a couple
movies and I have a clip from one of them on my website. It's with
some irony that he made his fame not dressing in women's clothing,
but in the 1933 film "From Arizona To Broadway" he plays
a female impersonator. His character is named Ray Best, a not-at-all
disguised reference to Mae West, and it's West who he channels doing
a number in a show. Here's just the music clip and it breaks part
way through because the scene changed and I edited out the part not
of him. Jean Malin, as Ray Best, doing a bit of "Frankie &
Johnny."

Jean
Malin - Frankie & Johnny (1933)

In August of
1933 Jean Malin died when he accidentally backed his car off a pier.
He was only 25.

I've got the
audio from another movie clip to share with you, and words do Not
do justice to the visuals. In the 1932 Clara Bow movie "Call
Her Savage" there is a short scene in a club that features two
very mincing guys, dressed as maids and they prance around there's
no other way to say it singing a song called "Working as
Chambermaids." I mention it because the movie would have been
made at the height of The Pansy Craze and this was perhaps Hollywood's
way of giving the public a taste of it. It's only 30 seconds long
but priceless.

"Call
Her Savage" clip - Working As Chambermaids (1932)

"And on
a great big battleship you'd like to be working as chambermaids."
You owe it to yourself to track down that video on youtube.

And this is
a good time to invite you to check out my website. If you visit it
while you're listening you can see the playlist and follow along,
while looking at photos of the artists and recordings. I've always
considered our music history as a visual as well as an audio experience.
Again, that's at www.queermusicheritage.com, Also, for more very queer
programming, please listen to After Hours with Jimmy Carper, every
Friday night/Saturday morning from 1 to 4 am, on KPFT; it's Queer
Radio, with attitude.

Continuing our
story I next introduce you to Ray Bourbon, who I think holds the honor
of being the most colorful, most prolific and longest lasting of all
these entertainers. He worked in silent films, did some vaudeville
and by the 30s was working full time as a female impersonator. His
recording career spanned some 30 years, with numerous releases on
78, 45 and LP, far more than any other female impersonator. He toured
continually for decades and in the 40s Mae West cast him in a couple
of her productions, "Catherine Was Great" and "Diamond
Lil." In the 50s he claimed he had had a sex change, and accordingly
changed the spelling of his name from r-a-y to r-a-e, but it was all
hype, which he knew how to milk. One of his albums was even called
"Let Me Tell You About My Operation." In 1970 he was convicted
of charges of being an accomplice to murder and sentenced, at around
age 75, to life in prison, where he died of a heart attack the next
year. I did tell you he was colorful. But in the 30s The Pansy Craze
brought him engagements in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami
and Chicago, to name a few. There is so much to tell, but that skates
over the surface. I'm bringing you two songs by him, from 1936 and
done in his sing-song way, a sort of recitation style that many of
these artists used. Here is Ray Bourbon singing "My First Piece"
and "Gigolo."

Ray
Bourbon - My First Piece (1936)
Ray Bourbon - Gigolo (1936)

Accompanying
Ray Bourbon on piano on these and many of his releases was Bart Howard,
who was gay himself, and went on to fame later when he wrote the classic
song "Fly Me To The Moon."

You can classify
the Pansy Craze performers roughly into two groups, those who did
and did not perform in drag. Bert Savoy, Douglas Byng, Karyl Norman
and Ray Bourbon did it in drag, and as I already mentioned Jean Malin
was the first to dress in male clothing, performing as your perfect
pansy host. He was soon joined by others. Dwight Fiske was a classically
trained pianist and was studying in Europe when Tallulah Bankhead
discovered him and brought him to New York. There he soon became popular
with his stories, that often ridiculed the very society circles he
entertained. He had a long career, lasting until his death in the
50s and releasing quite a number of 78s and albums and writing several
books. Perhaps his most well-known piece is called "Mrs Pettibone,"
from 1933.

Dwight
Fiske - Mrs Pettibone (1933)

Dwight Fiske.
Now to me, Fiske did not have quite as much gay sensibility as the
other artists, and certainly not as much as the artist closing the
show, Bruz Fletcher. And I'll get to Fletcher in a moment but want
to insert another Cole Porter song. You'll see the relevance in a
few moments. Okay, first off, please do not think I am classifying
Cole Porter as part of the Pansy Craze. While he was gay that was
more of an open secret than part of an act, and indeed, he rarely
performed his own work. He was one of this country's finest composers
and the recordings of him singing were more than likely not intended
for release. Still, it's fun to hear him sing a song from one of his
shows intended to be sung by a woman. Gertrude Lawrence sang "The
Physician" in an original 1933 production, but here is Cole Porter
doing it. And you'll see right away why I'm following it with a song
by Bruz Fletcher.

Cole
Porter - The Physician (1935)
Bruz Fletcher - My Doctor (1935)

"My Doctor,"
by Bruz Fletcher. For those just hearing this show, Bruz was spelled
b-r-u-z and I understand that was a family nickname, his real name
being Stroughton J Fletcher III. He also had a very colorful though
very short career. One of my friends, Tyler Alpern, has literally
written the book on Fletcher, having just published a comprehensive
biography. According to Tyler, Fletcher was born into one of Indiana's
wealthiest and most dysfunctional families. I'll skip to Fletcher
landing in Hollywood where in the mid-30s he began headlining at the
Club Bali. Originally booked for two weeks the engagement lasted over
four years and that club was a frequent watering hole of Hollywood's
who's who. As for Fletcher's act, I'll again quote his biography:
"his songs have a only a few direct uncoded homosexual references
but can be described as sophisticated, energetic, witty, gossipy,
campy, bitchy, cosmopolitan, bawdy; in a single word gay." You've
already heard the amusing innuendo of "My Doctor." This
next song, one of the most well-known of his over 20 recordings, well
illustrates the role of a bitchy society gossip. From 1937, "She's
My Most Intimate Friend."

Bruz
Fletcher - She's My Most Intimate Friend (1937)

By 1940 Fletcher
had run into hard times. Police crackdowns on gay establishments had
left him and many other gay performers out of work. It's theorized
that led him to commit suicide in February of 1941, at age 34.

I've got one
more song by Bruz Fletcher to close the show, but I want to say that
of course given this timeframe I was only able to touch the surface
regarding the artists who starred in The Pansy Craze. On my website
I have an additional segment featuring more songs by many of the artists
I've covered, along with others relevant to this story. I realize
that, gee, there really is nowhere to hear these artists so I want
to gather many of them together to give you that opportunity. So,
there'll be more by Fletcher and Fiske, Byng and Bourbon, along with
Noel Coward and even some female artists. All that can be found at
my site, at www.queermusicheritage.com. And this is JD Doyle and I
thank you for listening.

As I said, Bruz
Fletcher is closing the show, and the last song is actually a song.
While he's mostly known for his witty and bitchy recitations, he wrote
an excellent song that, thanks to Frances Faye, has lived on. Faye
included the Bruz Fletcher song "Drunk With Love" on her
first album and kept it going by including it on two more albums and
making it a staple of her live act. The song got life again in 2006
when jazz artist Terese Genecco based a show on Frances Faye and made
it the title track of her own award winning album. But here's the
original, from 1937, Bruz Fletcher and "Drunk With Love."

Bruz
Fletcher - Drunk With Love (1937)

Fred Rich &
His Orchestra - He's So Unusual (1929)

Welcome to Queer
Music Heritage. I'm JD Doyle and I'm bringing you an extension of
my show all about The Pansy Craze. In this segment I'm bringing you
more of the main artists, and also some related ones, whose songs
illustrate that period of our culture, covering mostly the 1930s.
And this first act is not gay, but the song is. It's called "He's
So Unusual," and was made famous by Helen Kane, but I chose for
you a male version.

From 1929 that
was by Fred Rich and His Orchestra, and Cyndi Lauper did a wonderful
cover version of that song in 1984. Okay, you'll definitely notice
a difference between parts 1 and 2 of this show. On part 1 I did way
more talking than I usually do, because, well, there was just so much
history to explain and I had to go into more depth to introduce the
people, so that you knew how they fit in. In this part you already
know most of the artists so I can get to the music more quickly. So,
I promised you more of the main Pansy Craze acts, and I'm starting
right off with two by Ray Bourbon. Listen for his trademark giggle
as we hear the not-so-subtle songs "Chiropractor's Wife"
and "First Swimming Lesson."

Both from 1936,
Ray Bourbon released those on his own label, Boubana. He may have
gotten the label name idea from Dwight Fiske who started his Fiskana
label a couple of years before. So, here are two by Fiske. Notice
that he always first announces the name of the song.

Dwight
Fiske - Mrs Trapp (1946)
Dwight Fiske - Salome (1955)

Those two were
from a little later in the career of Dwight Fiske, from the 40s and
50s. Seems like he got less subtle by then with those two tracks,
called "Mrs Trapp" and "Salome."

I had intended
to play some Noel Coward in part one of this show. Not that I at all
consider him as part of The Pansy Craze, but he has a couple of songs
that certainly fit in. As in the case of the Cole Porter song I played,
this first one was from a musical, and was sung by a woman in that
show. And indeed over the years it's become a standard, covered by
vocalists like Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt and Dinah Washington. But of
course I prefer his own version, from 1932, of "Mad About the
Boy."

Noel
Coward - Mad About the Boy (1932)

There's another
song by Noel Coward that really fits this show, and that's "Green
Carnation." It's from his 1933 musical "Bitter Sweet,"
and talks about the practice of gay men in England in the gay 90's
wearing green carnations. There's no beating around the bush what
the song is about, and for 1933 in a mainstream musical that was noteworthy.
I wish I had a version of him singing the complete song, but all I've
been able to track down is him doing it as part of a medley. So I've
taken that snippet and coupled it with a version very faithful to
the spirit of the song. It's from 1967 from a Noel Coward tribute
album, and done by Edward Earle and the Satisfactions. They and Noel
all wear a "Green Carnation"

Above,
for some reason the Spanish title of the movie "The Trials
of Oscar Wilde" was "The Man With the Green Carnation"

I'm going to
stay in the UK for a while and play for you a song by a great friend
of Noel Coward's, Beatrice Lillie. Like many of the English artists
she also made many successful appearances in the U.S. during the pansy
era. Her signature song started out in 1917 as a children's song,
but somehow it seems different when she sang it, in 1934. It's called
"There Are Fairies At The Bottom of My Garden." And pay
attention to the song that right after it, as it refers directly to
those same fairies.

Beatrice
Lillie - There Are Fairies At The Bottom Of My Garden (1934)
Durium Dance Band - Let's All Be Fairies (1933)

There's no mistaking
the gay content of that song. That was "Let's All Be Fairies"
from 1933 by the Durium Dance Band. Have you got time for a quick
quote by Noel Coward. He said, "I should love to perform "There
Are Fairies in the Bottom of My Garden," but I don't dare. It
might come out "There Are Fairies in the Garden of My Bottom."
And, you know, I have two more fairy songs for you. The first is an
English music hall standard, with the amusing title of "No One
Loves a Fairy When She's Forty."

Tessie
O'Shea - No One Loves a Fairy When She's Forty (1935)

That was
well-known British singer and actress Tessie O'Shea, singing that
"No One Loves a Fairy When She's Forty." I've tried to find
a male version of that song, and there must be one, but I've yet to
uncover it.

I guess that
was my set of fairy songs. I've got one more from the UK, and I said
I'd play for you more by Douglas Byng and Bruz Fletcher. First from
Douglas Byng, from 1933 is one called "And Modern American Ways."

Douglas
Byng - And Modern American Ways (1933)

Again, that
was Douglas Byng. And for Bruz Fletcher, here's one from 1937 called
"The Prairie." Listen In the beginning for when he says
"I've been rounded up a-plenty, ask my buddies Casey and Lee."
Casey Roberts was his partner of many years, and himself quite accomplished
as an artist and designer, garnering three Academy Award nominations.

Bruz
Fletcher - The Prairie (1937)

Next you'll
hear Fletcher sing "Oh for a Week in the Country," and pay
close attention for all the double meanings, like for example, mention
of a daisy chain.

Bruz
Fletcher - Oh for a Week in the Country (1937)

The delightful
Bruz Fletcher.

I want to share
with you a couple by a straight artist named Nan BlaKstone. She also
was known for the naughty double-entendre style of music, and she
performed at the same clubs as some of our pansies. She headlined
with Jean Malin in 1931 and Bruz Fletcher in 1934. She even paired
up with Dwight Fiske to release an album together. And she was on
one of the labels Ray Bourbon recorded on, Liberty Music Shop. She
has a song I've played before on my show called "He Should Have
Been a WAC," about a guy who, well, should have. But I've picked
two for you that show just where her mind could go. Both from 1946,
here are "The Elevator Song" and "Little Richard's
Getting Bigger," and it's just what you think.

Nan BlaKstone,
and on recordings made after 1939 you'll find her last name spelled
without the c, and with the k capitalized, as that was when her publicist
decided to change the spelling.

I've got another
female performer to play for you, who went by Madame Spivy, or just
Spivy. She started entertaining in New York City in the mid-1930s
and made her first recordings in I believe 1939. She attained real
attention when she ran her own club, called Spivy's Roof, located
on 57th Street in New York City, which lasted from 1940 to 1951. That's
quite a long run. Here's a quote from someone from that time period
describing her: "This was Spivy. Her hair was combed and lacquered
into a pointed pompadour with a white streak running through it, and
she often wore a black dress with shoulder pads and sequined lapels.
Spivy was squat and looked like a bulldog. We used to call her the
bulldog bulldyke." After running her club in New York she went
on to do the same in several European cities, and then returned to
the U.S., and amazingly went from live performing to a quite successful
movie and television career, appearing in major films. But back to
the music, my favorite by her mentions Oscar Wilde. It's from 1939,
and she says "I Brought Culture to Buffalo in the 90's."

Spivy
- I Brought Culture to Buffalo in the 90's (1939)

Time to wind
down this segment, and I've had a lot of fun bringing you music that
you probably would not be able to hear anywhere else. I'm closing
with three by Ray Bourbon, and the first is called "Bourbon to
the Cleaners," and is from 1945, where he says he's cleaned up
his act. Don't believe it. I like the song because he mentions some
of his contemporaries, so you'll hear him talk about Nan Blakstone,
Dora Maughan, Dwight Fiske, Sophie Tucker and Mae West.

Ray
Bourbon - Bourbon to the Cleaners (1945)

Of course you
noticed when Bourbon mentioned Mae West, who he had close associations
with for years. In 1944 she cast him in one of her shows, called "Catherine
Was Great." The critics hated it, but it ran for several months
on Broadway. In it she sings the song "Strong, Solid and Sensational."
Now, it's a very unusual recording where you can hear Ray Bourbon
actually sing, but he departs from his normal recitation style to
do his own version of that song, with his best Mae West impression.

Ray
Bourbon - Strong, Solid and Sensational (1945)

From 1945, again,
that was Ray Bourbon, and this is JD Doyle thanking you again for
joining me on this visit to the music of the Pansy Craze. Closing
the show is another rare track of Ray Bourbon singing, this time in
his own voice. It's from 1941 and is a tropical journey with all the
wordplays you would expect from a song called "Take a Lei."